Mercy
by Mrstrentreznor
Summary: You may meet a stranger... especially if you like visiting graveyards. Original story.


**Winner of the VinXperience Summer 2010 Vampire Fiction Contest**

Author: Mrstrentreznor

Title: Mercy

Rating: G

Fandom: none; I made it all up myself

Disclaimer: the line about the eunuch comes from Red Dwarf

Summary: you may meet a stranger

Archive: ask first please

Feedback: please and thankyou

Word count: 1844

**AN: The contest had certain phrases that you had to use in the story. They are marked. Just to show that I can write vampires too... lol**

**MERCY**

She loved graveyards. She found the tombstones fascinating. The lines of history literally carved in stone. Whenever she travelled, the graveyard was often her first stop. They recorded the prosperity of the town; the sickness; the wars, the harsh winters.

The ones that pulled at her heart the most were the babies. Tiny things; barely hanging onto life before they were pulled away from their mother's bosom. Sometimes they only lived for days. She couldn't imagine the heartache the mother had as she placed that tiny body into the ground.

She thanked the fact that she lived in a modern time with medicine and vaccinations. Sickness frightened her. She hated hospitals. Her old school friends had a game of nominating a time in history when you wanted to live. Naturally the proviso was always that you had to be rich. No-one was ever a slave or a peasant struggling in the streets. 'I was Alexander the Great's chief eunuch.' No-one ever said that. She had always voted for now. She had never wanted to live in the past.

What the tombstones also recorded was family. Grandparents, parents and their children all buried in the same plot or mausoleum. It was all the more fascinating to her because she didn't have one; a family that is.

Maybe that's why they fascinated her. Maybe they could be her family? She didn't know. She was an orphan; abandoned at a hospital, raised in a home. Family per se was not something she knew about. Perhaps that was why she hated hospitals. Perhaps that was why she spent her time on this endless road trip. Her novels earned her a meagre income; but it was enough. There was nothing she needed. Things were just clutter.

Her endless travel also ensured her solitude.

So here she was standing in a tree lined grave yard right on dusk. The long shadows stretched across the ground.

She stood lost in contemplation beside one stone.**"Eternity" **was written on it in the most beautiful cursive writing. The name was Lavinia Jackson and she had lived in the 1880's. She wondered if she had found her eternity.

"She went a little mad in the end. She would only wear white gowns and all the people of the town called her 'the woman in white'." The voice came from a man standing about ten paces behind her in the shadow of a mausoleum. She had not heard him approach. She put it down to her daydreaming.

"Like Emily Dickinson," she contributed. "Didn't she spend her last years, dressed in white and never left her home?"

He smiled. "Yes, that's right; she did too."

She glanced back at the stone. "Did she find her eternity?" she asked. She felt somehow that his man would know. He took a step forward.

"No," he shook his head. "It wasn't like that. Eternity was what she refused. I think in the end she believed that she might have made a mistake." He approached further and gestured at the stone "Otherwise she would not have had it written on her stone."

He looked down and sighed. "Pity. She was such a beautiful woman."

She looked at him sharply. He couldn't be more than thirty. A little young to be the local historian. They were usually crusty old men or terrifying old biddies with a death grip on the history of _their_ town. Sometimes she tried to get story ideas from them, but often it was more trouble than it was worth. Plus her kidneys drowned in the endless cups of tea.

He was simply dressed in black trousers, a white shirt and a long black overcoat. The outfit was ageless; it could have been from last week or last century. His dark hair was parted on the side, simply cut in a classic short back and sides with a longer forelock at the front. Again, an ageless cut. No hair product. He was a very attractive man.

"Are you… are you the local historian? She asked.

He smiled. "In a manner of speaking."

"Were there photos of her?"

He didn't answer her. He studied her. Then he said, "You are not a fool, are you?"

"Generally not." She thought that might have sounded rude and for some odd reason, she didn't want to be rude to him. "I write for a living; I have to be observant."

"Aah," he said as if that explained everything. She rather thought that it did.

She shivered. Night had fallen and it was cold in the graveyard. He noticed and shrugged out of his coat and placed it over her shoulders.

She muttered her thanks. She was not sure she wanted to owe him anything. She was also not sure she should be hanging around. Especially now it was full dark.

"It's dark," she stated obviously.

"There is a candle and some matches in the left hand pocket," he said. It struck her as both incongruous and appropriate.

"I really should be going," she said. But she didn't.

She pulled out the small white candle and balanced it on top of Lavinia's headstone.

"Do you think she would mind?" she asked as she lit it with the matches.

"No. She always did love visitors."

There was a pause.

"You really want me to ask don't you?"

"Ask what?" He looked innocent.

"Oh come on!" She held up her hand and started counting off on her fingers. "You are hanging in a graveyard at dusk; you know personal information about a woman who died 130 years ago; you don't feel the cold; your clothes are ageless and…" she added triumphantly, "Your coat has no body warmth."

"Oh yes," he said. "You are _very_ smart." He sounded sarcastic.

She blinked.

In retrospect it may have not been a good idea to put all that together while she was still here.

With him.

He was watching her. Waiting. Waiting for what? For her to run? Scream?

"Am I supposed to run?" she asked him.

"You don't strike me as the running and screaming type," he said. He tilted his head.

"Even if you asked nicely; I tend to be too clutzy," she explained. "Wouldn't get far."

"What if I used my best manners?" he leant towards her and crooned, "**Run from me, please."** He managed to make that sound sinful.

She shivered again; not because she was cold.

She started to think that she was dead. Running was a very bad idea. But perhaps she did still have some control over this situation. She was good with words; they were, after all, her profession. She might make it out of this alive; well at least undead.

"So," she said. "You're just going to feed on me?"

He raised his eyebrows, but didn't answer.

"Seems like a waste," she added.

There was a pause. He looked at her speculatively. He was standing less than a metre from her now.

"Lavinia," she said, changing the subject "Did she turn you down? Or did you turn her down?"

He snorted.

She waited.

She put her hands in the pockets of the coat.

She looked him fearlessly in the face.

"She hated blood."

"Aah," she said, as if that explained everything. Which of course, it did.

There was silence for a few minutes. She shuffled her feet. The cold was starting to come up through the soles of her shoes. The candle cast its meagre light. The wick flickered in the night breeze.

"You gave me your coat," she said.

He didn't answer.

"You didn't want me to catch a cold."

Silence.

She took a step towards him. He gazed at her.

"So you are not going to 'glamour' me; hypnotise me or whatever you are supposed to do?" she asked, wishing she had paid more attention to those movies.

"Unnecessary," he stated succinctly.

He was utterly spectacular she decided. He seemed to get better looking the closer she got to him. She took another step. Very carefully she put her hand up and placed it flat on his chest; where his heart ought to be. He was not cold to the touch so much as room temperature. There was no heartbeat. He was still watching her.

She slid her hand up and into the neck of his shirt.

She touched his bare skin.

He shivered. He closed his eyes.

She slid her hand up the back of his neck and pulled him towards her.

"Kiss me," she breathed.

He bent his head down and very gently brushed her lips with his. Her heart raced. She was not sure if it was because she was kissing a vampire or because she was kissing _him_.

He groaned.

His cool hands reached up to her face and pressed against her cheeks. She was burning up. She opened her mouth and tentatively brushed her tongue across his lower lip. Something within him seemed to snap. He pulled her up hard against his body.

His lips felt cool but they were still soft. She wound her arms around his neck. He kissed her deeply until she had to draw back for breath. Then he moved to kiss along her jaw and down her neck. She was panting. He of course, had no need to breathe and kissed her relentlessly.

"My heart," she gasped. "I think my heart is going to stop."

"Only if you want it to," he murmured against her neck.

She put her hands up against his chest and tried to push him back. He was immoveable.

"Please," she begged. "I don't even know your name."

He paused, lifted his head and looked at her gravely. "Of course. Where are my manners?"

He released her, straightened and seemed to pull his shoulders back. He bowed gracefully to her and extended his hand.

"Samuel Reynolds, ma'am. A pleasure to make your acquaintance." He kissed the back of her hand.

She noted with a giggle that she had managed to muss up his perfect hair.

She dropped an imperfect curtsey. "Mercy Portland, sir. The pleasure is all mine."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I am named after the hospital where I was dumped as a newborn," she explained. "It's a very long and very tragic tale."

"Is it?" he asked. "Then I can give you all the time in the world to tell me of it."

He was still holding her hand and he rubbed his thumb across the back of it. He lifted her hand to his lips again and placed a gentle kiss on it.

"That is… if that is what you want."

She gazed at him and thought **he **was all that she wanted in the world. She made her decision.

She brushed her hair away from her neck and angled it towards him.

"**Bite me**." She said.

FF_2154210_ - 11/08/2011 02:56:00 PM


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